The Veilfall Crusade
by Mieper
Summary: When the disappearance of a warp phenomenon reveals a previously hidden part of the galaxy, the Veilfall Crusade his assembled to bring the Emperor's Light into this dark realm. Yet even with the power of the Imperium, such a mission is neither easy nor free of danger, and it provides plenty of chances for those who would like to see the Imperium burn. Rated M as it is Warhammer.
1. Prologue

AN: Time for another story. I will probably experiment with 1st person narration for a while, as it is rather new for me. Of course, I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

It was a dark age, torn apart by war. The Imperium was beset by foes on all sides, billions dying every day to try and keep the Xeno, the Heretic, and the Daemon at bay. So bad was the general situation that even the highest lords of mankind had taken notice, and after many months of deadly politics, parts of the senate had truly realized the danger, and had decided to take the most drastic action they could.

"And for all these reasons of efficiency effectiveness and coordination, it is, for the good of the Holy Imperium, necessary to start to reunite the Guard and Navy into one entity. All imperial forces who are united in such a way, be they the troops of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Arbites, the Adeptus Astartes or even the armies of Rogue Trades have proven superior to most of both the Guard and the Navy in the aspects already mentioned. The Imperial Army needs to rise to its old power if we want to survive these dark times!"

It was the last speech in the current debate and now the High Lords of Terra did cast their votes. The representative of the Holy Inquisition and the Grand Provost of the Adeptus Arbites voted against it, as did the Ecclesiarch. The Grandmaster of the Officio Assassinorum remained neutral, while the representatives of the Guard, the Navy, the Adeptus Administratum and the Charist Captains voted for it. The surprise came when the Manufaktor Principalis supported the proposal. And it seemed that the Paternoval Envoy and the master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica had also been promised something worth their support by the Administratum.

The result was clear and irrefutable, now the details of this fundamental decision were to planned out. The later orders given to the segmentum commands would state that the change was to be incorporated slowly to avoid strife between officers trying to get the same position. However, new units where to be build according to the old rules of the Imperial Army. As with nearly all decisions made by the High Lords, there would be quite many deaths and ruined lives as a result, but also much success to be had for those with the luck, the skill, or both at their back. Of course, the factions opposed to this new law would not just allow this to pass, and quite a few high heads rolled in the aftermath, but the new law itself stood firm.

* * *

 _Hive Gewq, Kayco Primaris_

Great wealth and power bring a lot of good things as anyone can imagine, and they tend to make life both easy and pleasant. However, there are always expectation, even from people who have absolutely no idea who you are and don't care for the most part. Also, these individuals had the uncomfortable habit of being in even more powerful positions, so politely disappointing them was not an option who would want to take. Duty was calling, as bad as that was. 

_Once again, you show what a wimp you are. It's not like you are the one to be send to war_.

It was true, I was not the one who had to answer the call. But the person who had to was very close to me, and so I was already sick with worry, even though she had not left the planet yet. It would of course get far worse once the operation was to begin.

 _Calm down, you idiot. It's not like high command is some kind of hellhole. You should worry if they were to send her to the trenches_.

I could tell myself that as often as I wanted, and it didn't help much. To at all, if I was to be honest. Everything could have gone so well if things had not turned out like this.

If father had not been killed a few months ago.

His job had been a dangerous one to be sure, a High Admiral had many enemies. And through some means, maybe treachery, maybe cursed warpcraft or maybe just dumb luck, the chaos ship had jumped out of the warp while he was on a light cruiser instead of a battleship, and the smaller ship had not been able to withstand the heretic's barrage. So Augustus Ravencrown had fallen, and his family mourned his passing for a time before realizing that he would not want us to mourn, or to do anything else to distract us from our normal life. He had of course made preparations for his death and while they had only the best intentions, they backfired in a spectacular way. Father had arranged for his children to be considered for some of the highest ranks in the sector military, probably sure that he would live long enough for us to be ready. Now we weren't ready, and for some reason, not unlikely the actions of his political enemies, the Administratum had decided to grant father's wish in the worst way door opened, and the one of us who got called for duty entered.

My sister, Victoria Ravencrown, three years older than I, had just been appointed has the supreme commander for the planned Veilfall Crusade. She looked as beautiful as always, lean yet strong with a pretty face and amber eyes, her dark hair tied up in long ponytail. But her worry, or rather suppressed panic was quite obvious for everyone who knew her.

I walked up to her to give her the hug she so obviously needed, and as I did, I saw the changes in her attire. Normal, she wore the same kind of grey and silver uniform of the military academy, but now she had received her new rank insignia and an opulent fur cloak. In addition, she was now carrying a power sword on her left side. It was obviously not her choice to wear those things, the cloak was far to warm for anything outside of the coldest months in winter, and while Victoria had not been bad a fencing, she preferred not to walk around with a blade. It had to be for the speech she was to give for the troops in a few hours.

Victoria had to leave for her speech, I was of course the one with tears in the eyes. It didn't matter how I tried to keep my fear back, I was unable to do so. Not only would the supreme command over a crusade attract assassins like a untrained psyker attracted doom, but failing in her duty would be just as fatal. We had both made the training to Force Commander and Vicky had finished it a about three weeks ago, so she was, at least on paper, qualified to command a cruiser and a regiment worth of ground forces, perhaps with a squadron of escorts or another one or two regiments depending on type and size, but a crusade was obviously on an entirely different scale.

I let go of her and looked into her eyes again. She tried to look confident as it was expected from someone of her new rank, and while she succeed in that, she was able to look strict and stable. Not quite the right thing, but a decent first step.

"I have to go now", she said, her voice sounding cold and devoid of emotion.

"I will follow you as soon as I can." She smiled at that, but there was no joy in the expression.

It was not possible for me to accompany her to her speech as only members of the crusade's high command and their bodyguards were allowed in. So I just brought her to the landing pad where her guncutter and several escort fighters were waiting.

"Stay safe, Damien, and may the Emperor protect you", were her last words as she entered the plane and looked back. The engines roared and made it impossible to answer, so I just wiped away a tear as the guncutter rose. I hoped do see her again, and I feared that this might never happen.

* * *

The flight to the flagship in the planet's low orbit took nine point four minutes, and Victoria Ravencrown spend the entire time staring out of the window. She watched the spires of the gamma hive shrink, followed the paths of other flyers as she tried to keep her composure intact. The sky was soon replaced by the ring of orbital defense platforms and the fleet assembled there. All types of ships were present, from the relatively small destroyers to the massive shapes of battleships, all of them proudly showing the gothic artstyle of the Imperium, and Victoria felt a sense of pride rise in the middle of her fears.

Her new security detail, all members of some elite grenadier regiment she had never heard of, maintained a firm grip on their weapons, apparently some pattern of hot-shot lasgun she had also never heard of before. They were quite frightening in their jet black heavy carapace armor and in the way they moved, all of them showing the well trained elegance of veterans. They had not spoken a word since she entered the plane, only saluting before taking positions around her. Still, their purpose was apparently to keep her save, so they were not quite as unwelcome as they might have been.

 _If I only knew what to tell them,_ she thought as the plane approached its destination.

The hangar bay of the flagship, the battleship _Appropriate Vengeance_ , was a massive, well-lit cavern usually holding dozens of fighters. And this was only one of several this gargantuan vessel carried. Now there were no attack craft stored here, instead, hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers stood at attention and saluted as she stepped on the ramp of the guncutter. Being greeted like this was both deeply satisfying and terrifying at the same time, and Victoria walked quickly through the path in the formation, hoping to get out of here before she lost her mind. Of course, there was a path open for her in the formation, and it took all her willpower not to start running. Many of those who watched the scene only saw an ambitious officer rushing to get to business, someone every commenter would also claim, even if they saw the truth. This could be made into a propaganda victory, and her team for the matter which Victoria Ravencrown didn't even know to exist was already at work.

A vehicle of the ship's internal transport system awaited them, little more than a metal box with doors, about the size of a tank mounted on a monorail. From the inside, it was impossible to tell how fast it moved, but it had to be very fast since it took only a handful if minutes before the vehicle began to move upwards instead of forwards, and another minute later, the doors opened to reveal the the much nicer atmosphere of the upper decks.A ship officer saluted before turning around to lead the group onwards. This part of the ship was currently in full use and so there was much less pomp and celebration to be found here. Still, everyone seeing the new marshal took the time for a swift salute, if only to avoid trouble should the marshal or a commissar take offense to not doing so. They could to see how insecure their new superior was underneath the neutral expression Victoria desperately tried to keep, and even if some of them did, they knew talking about this was a sure way to be placed on the wrong side of a firing squad.

The command bridge of the _Appropriate Vengeance_ was a massive room, styled like the interior of a castle fitted with dozens of high end cogitators and other advanced technology. Massive Vidscreens along the walls showed a the void outside, making it look as if there were huge windows all around instead of layers of armor plating many meters thick. Most of the interior was plated in chrome, to a point were looking at the wrong angle made making out details quite difficult.

There were easily a hundred people in this room, guards, bridge crew and officers included. And all of them were currently looking at Victoria Ravencrown with great expectations.

 _Just p_ _ostpone the nervous breakdown_ , she told herself, _it's alright if you have one, just not right now._

No amount of taking deep breaths would really help here, and taking them right now would make her discomfort obvious for everyone who wasn't blind or a complete idiot.

Still, through what could only be the direct intervention of the God-Emperor, Victoria appeared to be determined if one looked at her from afar, and few people dared to stare at their superior for long, fearing the ire of anyone of higher rank.

* * *

Lord Commissar Milton had known how the high command for this crusade would look like, but seeing it up close was much, much worse. Whoever had chosen its members had either not had the interest of the Imperium in mind, or was a complete fool. Only two individuals in this room where even worthy of this position, and two others were quite obviously a terrible choice.

To his left stood a spot of hope in the shape of Inquisitor Lilianne Charnley, her presence reinforced by her sororita pattern power armor. Her face held as many scars as his own, and the fire in her eyes was radiant in its righteous fury, and Milton was glad that it had found the right target. He held a certain admiration for the puritan Inquisitor, her being someone he could trust to preserve the Emperor's light no matter the cost and circumstance.

Inquisitor Avarius Warwick was the one person in this room both Milton and Charnley just wanted to shoot, for he was what the Holy Ordos called a radical, someone dangerously close to crossing the border into outright heresy. But for some reason, the Lord Inquisitor still trusted Warwick, and so he remained here. He was quite handsome physically and could be charming if he wanted to, but his philosophy and roguish style were disgusting all wise citizens of the Imperium. In his coat and hat, he might as well have been nothing more than successful recidivist, a look fuelled the fire of Milton's distrust even further.

Lord Commander Konrad Arras was an officer with a rather turbulent career, one that lead him from leading a mechanized regiment from his homeworld of Armageddon to commanding an army group of the Death Korps of Krieg before ascending to high command. He was still clad in the uniform of a Death Korps general and was even wearing his respirator. His career had included an unusually high number of retreats, and while he had never been condemned for them, a commissar would always watch such a man with suspicion.

And then there was the person supposed to be in overall command, Marshal Victoria Ravencrown. Milton had seen many officers elevated in positions far above their abilities due to family connections, and she looked like a perfect example of this disgusting practice. She was simply far to young to be placed in such a position, only twenty three standard years to be exact, although she managed to look more competent than a few others he had seen. But how had she gotten this position in the first place? Granting someone barely adult this kind of authority was downright madness, but for now, there was nothing he could do about it. And if Lord Commissar Baltazar Milton hated one thing except for heresy and xenos, it was being unable to properly fulfill his duty.

* * *

I was back some, still in shock and my heart trembling with fear. But I was no longer alone, the few friends Victoria and I had had joined me, and so we shared our nervousness as we stared at the pict-screen in the living room. This should be a time of pride and triumph, yet there was none of that, just fear and worry. We all knew that the position of Marshal was way above our collective paygrade, at least without a century's worth of additional experience.

Richard was the first one to open a bottle, and I could hardly blame him for it. He had fallen in love with Vicky some time ago, although he had never found the courage to tell this to anyone but. He was a good guy, and I would have wanted them to be happy together. I preferred to stay sober, or at least I was not that panicked just now, but his desire to force the fear down was something I could understand all too well. Miranda and Egon also took a few drinks, while Phillipa and I just kept staring the screen. The couch we sat was usually very comfortable, but now it felt as if was made from iron, and so he began to pace up and down in the room, fruitlessly trying to keep my head clear, until I realized that I was just making everyone even more miserable and sat down again. 

* * *

Her hands were shaking as she stepped towards the speaker's desk, and she used the chance to hold onto it. The display flared into life, showing a speech already written by some of the best the Ordo Prefectus had in their motivation department. The new security detail took positions all around her, and the rest of the staff watched in silence as the camera team made the last adjustments. An icy calm fell onto Victoria as the adrenalin kicked in again, and she knew that if she failed this, it would probably mean death by execution, as the Ordo Prefectus was already irritated by her getting this post and would take an excuse if they got one.

Seeing how the only escape route was forward, she pulled herself up and began to speak.

The knowledge of billions of eyes all over the planet below and the ships all around watching was crushing, but only for a moment. Then, Victoria felt something new rise to power within her mind: The faith to the God-Emperor. This could be her chance to bring His Divine Light into the darkness beyond the current borders of the Imperium. Her eyes opened again, without her even realizing they had been closed, and they were now filled with righteous resolve as was her mind, all fear banished for now, although probably not for long. The golden lights around her were know soothing rather than blinding, and she was able to ignore the way the man in the commissar uniform glared at her.

"Soldiers and citizens of the Imperium! For too long have the veils of the cursed warp kept His Light out of the dark corners of the galaxy, provided shelder for the abdominations that are the xenos and the heretics. But their festering presence will not be allowed to remain any longer! This crusade will burn away their disgusting taint and extent the glory of the Imperium even further! To do so, the imperial forces under my command will be formed into Veilfall Crusade, to make sure the regions previously hidden behind the phenomenon known as the "veil in the warp" will not stay without His Light any longer!" Victoria knew many citizens without high education and decent security clearance had never previously heard of the warp veil, but it didn't matter to her and it wouldn't matter to most of the subjects of the Emperor either.

"With all your support, this endeavor is certain to bring swift sucess. Still, I urge you to give what you can so the victory can be even swifter and even more glorius. May the Emperor's light shine on all of us!" She formed the sign of the aquila as she stepped back, and the camera shut down.

As the lights were dimmed back to normal levels, she felt how her hands began to shake again, the sudden flash of determination was gone just like it had appeared in the first place. She just wanted to leave, but she didn't even know where to head. Returning home was obviously no option, and she had no idea where her quarters on the ship were located. If this was a cruiser, Victoria would have been able to find the captain's suite on her own, but a battleship like this one was a completely different beast. Even though doing so was deeply embarrassing, she had to ask one of her bodyguards. There was no expression to be seen behind the armored rebreather, but the soldier merely handed her a data slate with map of the ship. 

* * *

Seeing my sister standing behind the speaker's desk was painful, but it also filled me with a strange sense of pride. She looked confident in spite of her earlier despair, and while she held herself like that, the new fur cape and the new insignia actually suited her. If it were not for her age and my knowledge of her feelings, she could have walked straight out of one of the many old portraits in the academy.

The speech was something to be expected and full of what everyone with decent education knew to be blatant propaganda, even though few people were dumb enough to show this knowledge. It would soon show if had hit the right spot in the population, but the writers were usually quite good at their task, while the masses in the lower areas of the hives were often desperate for any sort of cause to escape the misery of their lives. Cynical, I knew, but that didn't make it a false analysis. At least this was better then joining gangs or worshipping the ruinous powers. Still, if this didn't work as intended it might sign her death warrant, so I could nothing but shake while watching it until I managed to reach out for one of the open bottles of amasec on the was good stuff, the staff always made sure the money they were given was spend on quality things. Still, I was not exactly used to hard drinks. I got a few worried looks from my friends as I put the bottle down, as they knew me not to drink at all under normal circumstances.

The gallow's humour followed immidiately after that train of thought. _Under normal circumstances. Right_. I took another sip from the bottle. It was already enough to make sure I got a solid hangover in the morning, but this was not a moment in which I cared much for such things. And I was the one living here, with no need to drive anywhere later. In that regard, there were enough guestrooms for all of my friends, and the first few days after the beginning of a crusade would be holidays, at least for the upper class to which we all luckily belonged.

Something small and warm suddenly jumped onto my lap, and it took a few moments for my strained brain to recognize my own cat, Simon. He was a good cat, always looking after me and my sister when we were sad or distressed, and he didn't fail me this time either. Simon began to purr, and I sank my hands into his fur as Victoria began her speech, a speech that would transmitted through the entire damn sector.

She spoke quite well, hitting the right tone to inspire many of the more downtrodden citizens who had worked so hard for this crusade to be made possible. Vicky had always had a way with words, but the pressure she currently suffered seemed to bring her to new heights of her ability. It was nearly scary in its intensity, as neither of us had ever been particularly zealous, but it meant she had better chances of surviving her new post and my fear was a cheap price for that.

With my sister's speech out of the way, the picture changed to a glorious shot of the fleet in the low orbit, then to one of several military parades that very hive on the planet held this day. That was all I would be able to see from my sister for now, and the cold fear clawed at my heart again. The crusade fleet would soon make its way through the fallen veil to plunge into the darkness on the other side, and as an educated man, I was willing to bet that there were plenty of horrific dangers over there. Even if the veil had made a proper incursion impossible previously, but a crusade would only be assembled if there was something worthwhile in the target area, and anything worthwhile in this bloody galaxy not already in imperial hands would be guarded by something terrible.

So I sat there on a couch, the family cat on my lap and surrounded by good friends, an almost wonderful scene if it were not for my sister being sent of to fight a war without being prepared, and with no way to weasel her way out of it, and no chance for me or any of our friends to stand at her side. Even all the wealth of House Ravencrown was useless here, and the only way out for my sister would be victory or death. I could not let the latter happen, there had to be something I could do. _If only I had any idea what it might be._

* * *

Of course, any large development in the Imperium meant losses for far more than just one family, and some where more obvious than others. While the newly appointed marshal was officially on the way to a glorious future, and her friends and brother knowing about there inability to influence things for now, many others had family or friends in equally bad or worse trouble. In spite of all the propaganda work done by the Ecclesiarchy, the Administratum and the individual planetary rulers, gathering the manpower for the crusade had not been an easy task, and where motivation failed, less friendly methods had been employed. Most planets had little need for prison inmates and most or their poorest population, so those were targeted for forced conscription into His Glorious Army, and with any imperial activity on a large scale, many innocents were caught in the crossfire, sometimes literally. Their rules cared little for such collateral damage, and if someone was wrongly designated for the draft, so be it. More meat for the grinder.

For the most obvious reasons, those close to the newly drafted soldiers did not share the opinion of the Administratum officials, and the first few riots had already been brutally crushed as the Arbites used their regular approach of overwhelming firepower and no regard for lost lives.

Julius Pete was one of the many who had lost two brothers to the enforcers, who had essentially caught them at random and had promptly sent them onto a troop transport to be shipped to some horrible place. Communications between the soldiers who conscripted at gunpoint and their relatives were pretty much nonexistent, and Julius had now finally enough of the brutal rule of the Imperium. He and his brothers had worked fourteen hours a day in the manufactorum at a shitty wage, and as a thanks for their work Ben and Cel had been abducted for no reason. This was more than the already frustrated Julius Peet could handle, and he was not alone his rage. One only had to gently push a few buttons to turn these people into the sparks to ignite the powder keg that was the lower part of nearly every imperial hive city...


	2. Chapter 1: Opening moves

AN: My apologies for the delays, final exams are closing in and I am sick half the time, both physically and sometimes with worry.

* * *

The rooms reserved for the the commander of the crusade onboard the Appropriate Vengeance were even more luxurious than Victoria's old home on the planet, although they were less extensive as space was always limited by some degree on a voidship. Yet there was no time to remain here, as an alarm on the data slate in her hands went off to inform her about a briefing in another room close to the bridge. Sighing, she turned around again and made her way through more busy corridors lined with guards.

The briefing room was separate from the actual bridge, another extravagance of the ship's design, as the command center would have been perfectly fine for any occasions of the type. But perhaps some details of what was to be said were not meant for the ears of the crew. It would make sense, given how strongly the Inquisition was currently present.

The room was still large, round with a diameter of about fifteen meters, and a large round table with plenty of comfortable looking chairs. A large screen on the western side was currently active, but showed only an imperial aquila.

The command staff for this operation was already gathered, and the looks Victoria got from the Lord Commissar and the power armored Inquisitor send shivers down her spine, no matter how hard she tried to be unfazed by their piercing glares. The other Inquisitor, Warwick, seemed a lot nicer, but Victoria would not thrust him further than she could throw the Appropriate Vengeance. Nice or not, he was still a member of the Ordo, and so he had to be a cold bastard underneath his handsome exterior.

The general in the Krieg uniform was someone she could not judge as of now, but he got plenty of points for being a member the military rather than any other imperial agency. Still, he might be working for someone. As long as this someone was the Emperor or the Lord Sector, it was fine but...

She forced herself to leave that train of thought for now, if only to to be able to focus on the next events. A robed figure stepped in, carrying several data slates. He bowed slightly in front of the high command. He then began to speak with no further introduction, in a cold voice devoid of any sort of emotion.

"Intelligence report for the worlds behind the so called "warpveil", version 41354, officially sanctioned by Lord Inquisitor Nilssin for use in the crusade to claim those worlds."

The screen came to proper life, showing a map of what Victoria assumed to actually be the region behind the veil. Only about twenty percent of the map was filled, the rest depicted nothing but a blank void. Of course this was to be expected as there was little time for reconnaissance since the veil had actually fallen, even though it would certainly pose a problem.

"Initial findings: The worlds close to the imperial side of the veil are populated mostly by splintered factions of chaos worshippers and orks, who are as of now busy fighting each other. It is not known how long those heretics control these worlds, so a thorough cleansing is recommended. First attempts to advance into the further regions has revealed at least one non-imperial human civilization. Peaceful means of absorption are currently investigated by Inquisitor Jaspin and several Rogue Trader houses. Caution is advised if such measures should fail. None of the factions discovered as of now have the strength necessary to pose a threat to the crusade."

The robed man stepped back, and all eyes turned on Victoria.

"When is the fleet ready to move out?", she asked, her own voice also quite cold, the only way to keep her growing fear hidden.

One of the few adjutants answered. "The core fleet will be ready within the day, some reinforcing elements are still on the way."

"The core fleet will be able to take down the outer parts of the target region." Victoria rose up, hoping that her posture was sufficiently confident. "Initiate the necessary steps. We will move out as soon as possible."

It was an order against all military common sense to rush only a part of your forces into enemy territory on such vague intelligence, but Victoria was the daughter of an Inquisitor. She knew that the Ordos rarely told the military all they knew, yet she was willing to bet that massive amounts of xenos or heretics were among those things the even the Inquisition would not try to hide. At if she had the fleet rush in like that, it would at least keep all potential accusations of cowardice at bay.

Only about two hours later, the engines of the Appropriate Vengeance rose from their semi-dormant state and howled their full fury into the void as the battleship began to move, taking its place in the center of the crusade fleet. The gellar field was checked the last time, and the reality in front of the ships was torn apart by the arcane might of their warp drives. The journey through the nightmare realm would probably take weeks, but these vessels were made to withstand even more. So the fleet moved out, millions of imperials more or less willing to do their duty. The price of this endeavor had already been steep in material, but its cost in blood had yet to be estimated.

* * *

Waking up the next morning was very, very uncomfortable. My head hurt from the amasec and it was past ten when Simon finally managed to wake me up. The way to the bathroom seemed to be a dangerous challenge, and after the hot water was let lose, leaving it was even worse. It was to be expected, bit that did nothing to make it easier. Actually, knowing how this was my fault made it was put of the question for now, I was in no shape to use anything with a blade.

A lot of cold water sobered me up a little, at least enough to get dressed properly. There was nothing for me to do this day, and that would mean I would think more about the latest events, which would probably make me drink even more. I had to do something else, something that did not involve amasec or anything similar. The best idea would be to just go for a walk. Perhaps.

The upper layers of the hive were quite suited for doing so, at least in the areas meant for such activities. A low powered force field kept the acid rain and the toxic gases away from the streets, and plenty of enforcers made sure people behaved somewhat well. Still, leaving your home in a city was nearly always a danger, and I was glad to have the protection of an armored uniform and my sidearm.

* * *

It had taken hours to get into the upper hive, and Peet had thought it to be impossible. But now he was here, walking through the streets of the rich, and vengeance was nearby.

Word in the lower parts of the massive city traveled swiftly, and after only a few hours, Peet had met people with the same burning rage and the same desire to avenge their loved ones and friends. And they had found someone willing to help them. Communication had been limited, only a crate had been dropped in a meeting place they were told about by some rather shady individual. But the contents of this crate were all they needed: Some money, an entry permit for the upper hive and a few simple weapons, as well as a list of those in the hive who had participated in the planning of this crusade.

A name, a way to get close and a gun were all someone needed to make sure the nobs up high would regret their mindless cruelty.

His companion was a woman easily twice his age, and he didn't even know her name. All he knew was that she had also lost someone close, perhaps a child, to the ruthlessness of the Lex Imperialis or the crusade's hunger for disposable cannon fodder. This also didn't matter. They were united in purpose, all else was irrelevant.

And it seemed the Emperor was smiling at them. The person they had been given a photo of, one of the planners behind the conception of the crusade, was just there, walking there past a small café, as if nothing had happened in the last few days. Peet nodded towards his ally, and his right hand closed around the old pistol he had received. He was not actually trained in using a gun, but caution played no part in his current state of mind and he was beyond such petty worries.

* * *

This was going to be a miserable day. It had started like this and it seemed determined to continue on this path. All I had wanted to do was to go for a walk to get my head clear. This part of the upper hive was nice enough, and the chance to get randomly shot pleasantly low.

And just as I walked past a small café, thinks went downhill properly. Two individuals were headed towards me, and both of them stuck out as they wore worker's clothes in on of the richest parts of the city. The way they looked at me combined with their hands clutched around something in their pockets was enough of a sign to get ready for trouble.

Fear dug its icy claws into me as reached for my own weapon. Two on one were not particularly good odds, and if I wanted to get through this, I had to be quick. The first of my attackers, an older woman with brown hair and eyes filled with unending hatred, was only able to draw her weapon halfway and froze as she stared into the barrel of my Hecuter. A good model, by the way,20 rounds able to pierce carapace armor at short range, and fairly accurate at that. The chances of a normal person in normal clothes against this kind of firepower were not exactly astonishing. This knowledge was what I held on to as adrenaline rushed through my veins and the training I had struggled to keep my fear under control.

But I was alone, and her comrade cared not much for her fate. Or at least not enough to prevent him from trying his next move. He was quite quick on the draw, but I only had to change targets. One shot was all he managed to get off, and it went wide as there was no time for him to aim. The sights aligned so easily, and I squeezed the trigger. Four times in row. The bullets did as they were supposed to, tearing through his clothes and flesh like paper. I was no marksman, but this was not too difficult. He fell, the wounds in his chest quite certainly fatal, his dying spasm sending a second round up into the sky, but again he was not alone, and as the man fell to the ground, his clothes turning red, he had taken up valuable time. His companion had drawn her gun and opened fire. The Emperor did indeed protect as she was clearly a terrible shot, the three rounds flying in my directions missed by a full meter at least.

I do admit that I panicked, so I flipped the switch to full auto and sprayed the rest of the magazine at her. Most of the rounds missed, but of the two that hit, one was a headshot. She too fell in spray of blood, bone and gore.

My gun clicked, the mag empty, and I dropped to my knees, although I was not injured. For a moment, my training tried to make me reload, but my shaking hands failed. I had never actually killed anyone, and I did not like this experience, not at all. The Hecuter clattered on the ground as people around screamed and bodyguards jumped forward to protect their charges. I barely realized my surroundings, breathing heavily as my brain tried to process what had just happened, and failed for the most part.

After the first shot was fired, it took about two minutes before the first enforcers arrived on the scene, the tires of their armored car screeching as they hit the breaks. Four men with autoguns and a heavy stubber moved in to secure the area, and three other patrol vehicles followed the first one. If I had worn the same kind of clothing as my attackers, they would probably have shot me. The Kayco Public Protection Enforcement Administration, as their organization was officially called, had a rather bad reputation as being corrupt, brutal and more or less just a uniformed goon squad for the hive nobility. It is a fairly accurate assessment, but as someone with the luck of being born into said nobility, I had little reason to complain. After taking one luck at me and the two dead bodies, the next sergeant and his patrol pretty much just picked me up and drove me home, not even bothering to ask why I had shot those two. Good thing too, in my current state, any kind of questioning might have driven me over the edge. One of them even gave me my gun back, seemingly unconcerned.

What if my action was wrong? What if the workers shooting at me had been the reaction to me aiming at them? Part of me told me that this was bullshit, and most of me wanted to believe that, but could I be certain? Or did I just murder to people for no reason save my paranoia, boosted by an amount of alcohol I was not used to?

The enforcers had no such thoughts, or they didn't care as long as I was of noble blood and my attackers were not. They stopped their vehicle in front of Ravencrown Manor and told me to go to bed, as if sleeping with those images in mind would do me any good. But they seemed well meaning and so I walked in, just making it to the couch before falling over again. Simon was at my side in the blink of an eye, and I buried my face in his fur, hoping fruitlessly to awake up from the nightmare of these last two days. There was no one I could call: Miranda and Richard were both on a fleet exercise near the border of the system, a last minute change of their schedules, Egon had been send on a patrol in the wastes surrounding the hive with a tank company, and Philippa had some sort of family trouble. Trying to contact any one of them would be fruitless, at least for now.

I did not just wake up from a very graphic nightmare, of course. That would be both nice and easy, and so the chances of something nice and easy happening where worse than those of a snowball in hell these days it seemed. About fifteen minutes after being dropped back home, I was staring at a bottle, wondering if getting wasted would make me feel better or worse. In the end, I was not willing to try it, and so I stayed on the couch, Simon next to me, and after a while, my eyes fell shut.

The dreams were bad. It was to be expected after the shootout, but I had still hoped to sleep without dreaming, or that Simon's soothing presence would make the images less terrifying, and perhaps it did. Still, it was everything but pretty. The feeling of resistance as I pulled the trigger, the recoil, that was the harmless part, something I knew from years of training. The roar of the shot was different, I took great care to wear hearing protection at the shooting range. And then there was the ugly part, the results of my doing. The man was bad enough, to see his body go stiff for a moment before it turned limb and fell, his clothes turning red, beginning in the area surrounding the four holes I had put in his chest and stomach. The other kill was an even worse picture, the bullet punching through her forehead, spraying bone, blood and brain in everywhere as significant parts of her skull were annihilated by the high powered cartridge. It was an image that would haunt me for a long time, of that I was certain.

* * *

Traveling the warp was surprisingly comfortable if you sat on the bridge of a battleship. There was some background noise from the crew doing their routine duties, but for the most part it was relatively quiet on the bridge. There also was a certain vibration in the entirety of the ancient vessel, but after a day most people on board were used to it, at least to the degree necessary to ignore it for the most part.

Victoria left the bridge after a few minutes, knowing that the veteran crew would not need her standing around while they handled the the journey through the immaterium. At least in her mind, a good commander had to know when to just let people do their job, and she did have certain ambitions to become one, especially since good commanders had a tendency of being successful and not being successful could mean the end of her life.

The captain of the Appropriate Vengeance was scared, old man named Titus Jerall, a veteran of nearly eighty years of service. Victoria had no doubts that the ship was in good hands and so she retired into her private quarters. The few reports deemed important enough to warrant the personal attention of the marshal had mainly told her how the initial plan to move into the newly discovered sector was going down without any major hickups.

There was not actually much to be done, as weird as that was. Nearly everything could be delegated to an underling with usually far more experience, and so doing so was less lazy and more competent behavior. A small part of Victoria's mind dared to hope for all her fears to be disproportional panic, but this was the easy part. After all, there was really nothing she could do to influence the warp routes or the ships using them, aside from maybe ordering the captains to take suicidal routes, and why would she do that?

Still, once this crusade would arrive back in realspace and the fighting began, things would certainly get a lot more difficult. Once battles started, she would have to make real decisions and then she would have the influence she most certainly had not wanted, at least not within this century. Many in the high command were obviously displeased by her being their superior, and she could see why. No one would want to be lead by someone fresh from the academy with no experience whatsoever. Yet as long as she was unable to leave this position, she had to fill it to the best of her abilities.

So she spend hours upon hours staring at the holomap of the region beyond the veil and studying all the reports she could get her hands on. It was not much to work with, and hopefully the Inquisition would make more Intel available soon. Only the border areas of the target regions had been investigated officially, and the picture shown was already not pretty. Ork tribes and various factions of heretics had entrenched themselves there and were supposedly busy fighting each other, with most of these factions only ruling a single system or less, and the largest one controlling four. However, these system were fairly isolated as the veil had prevented nearly all travel towards the galactic center, so these factions were probably among the weakest in the new regions, forced into the corners of this domain, their backs almost literally at the wall. Those who dwelled further away from the veil would probably be more powerful, and the utter lack of information regarding such heretics, xenos or other inhabitants was source of great concern for the young marshal.

The first few worlds had to be taken swiftly, before word of the crusade could spread. Then, these worlds would be fortified both to stop any attempted counterattack and to serve as supply bases closer to the front. Afterwards, the incursion would be continued deeper into the newfound territory. This was the general plan for now, if nothing unforeseen were to drastically change the operational circumstances. But as the old saying went, no plan survived the first enemy contact. The forms to request more reinforcements were already filled out for a dozen different vague threads, just in case.

Stopping to stare at the map for a moment, Victoria came to think about the people in her supposed command staff. The general, Arras, was a gruff, sometimes overly serious individual, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Inquisitor Charnley, as the power armored individual had been introduced, was a far more comfortable presence. A fanatic's fanatic, her eyes constantly burning with righteous rage and paranoia. She would probably be a problem in the future, and one that had to he handled with great care. Inquisitor Warwick was a textbook example of a slimy snake, charming from time to time but clearly poisonous on the inside. Being an easy going person and being part of the Holy Ordo really didn't go well together, and as Victoria knew more about the Inquisition than most people, she knew that it was almost certainly an act. Also, his charade was somewhat hampered by the fact that it was mostly based around the shock of an Inquisitor saying nice things, rather than those nice words being convincing on their own. But as long as she was careful enough and kept the full power of her rank, openly attacking her was something even an Inquisitor would probably not do, unless she gave them a good reason.

The Lord Commissar was a different problem. Just as much of a fanatic as Charnley, one minute of talking to him was enough to show that he was fitting most of the stereotypes the common soldiers had about their political officers. If this crusade went south, he would most likely be the first one to try to put a bolt round through her head. Victoria would do what she could to prevent that, yet if this would be the course of the future events, she would at least try to get him first.

Looking back up again, her focus broke for a moment, and it was swift to proof itself as a bad idea. She began to worry about Damien and her friends back home. Her younger brother was certainly worried sick, and she could only pray that he would not do something stupid. Her friends were probably slightly less affected, but the consequences might still be disastrous for them. She would feel the same if one of them was send to lead a fleet into an unknown area of space potentially filled with the most horrifying monsters in the galaxy would probably drive her completely insane.

And yet there was nothing she could do about it. She had looked for a way to weasel her way out of this position, and had not found when that worked without doing something that might be considered to be treason or desertion. The orders that had made her the commander of this fleet came from the imperial Segmentum Command, and they were not something anyone from the outside could appeal with massive support. An Inquisitor might be able to get her the support, but telling such fanatic about her desire to get home was not something she wanted to risk. It also smelled like a potential source of lead poisoning.

There was no denying it, the only way out was forward. If she made sure this crusade went exactly as planned, she would be able to go into early retirement or accept a voluntary demotion without much fuss. Or she might take the chances it would offered if she made it through this mess alive and sane. So it was time for more hope and prayer while there was still the time for both.

Victoria sighed and tried to focus on the map and the reports again.

* * *

Sleeping went somewhat better than expected in retrospect. The nightmares were there, but I had thought it to be even worse, becoming a victim of my own scared imagination, as silly as that might sound. Simon had seemingly not left my side, and so I woke up to the sound of purring. I kind of felt bad for worrying him as I rose up to get his food. He was a loyal cat, and it was certainly a trait I greatly valued. He deserved to be treated well. As always, he was a greedy eater, and I took the time to get some food for myself.

Still, the images didn't want to leave my head. After a while, I remembered that my weapon was still empty, and so I went through the mechanical motions of reloading, disassembling and reassembling the gun. The question of why remained, and I still had no idea about the answer. While I obviously was a member of the nobility and therefore not well liked among many of the poor inhabitants of the hive, I had never done anything to incite such an extraordinary dislike. And my attackers had passed through much of the upper hive without shooting the first noble they met, so I was no random target. What should I do now? I wanted to know why all of this happened, but I was rather scared about the affair. This was one of the moments in which it was sad that our house didn't have a private army and secret service nearby. Technically, we did have such assets, but they were not stationed on this planet, as our family was not from Kayco. Calling them here would take months, and all evidence would be long gone by then. If I wanted to find out anything, I would have to do it myself.

If course, this was not my best idea, considering both the risks and the fact that I was no detective. In spite of my concerns, I grapped my coat and left for the local enforcer station.

As so often in life, my inherited wealth opened doors, literally in this case. The enforcers were quite eager to help me, knowing that I might be able to pay substantial bribes if things went the way I wanted then too. This was certainly a possibility if they did good work, and on Kayco, it was not even technically illegal. Yet it might be a problem as I didn't want a faked report or unlawful arrest, but an actual investigation. It took some time to get to the right office, walking through the seemingly endless corridors and departments of the precinct.

Detective Inspector Hastings was the one responsible for my case, a man in his thirties with short brown hair who sent behind his typewriter smoking a lho stick. He even had the classic coat and fedora within reach.

"So, Lord Ravencrown, who to you think deserves to be punished for the heinous crime against your person?" Hastings managed to sound completely sincere and polite while asking who I wanted him to arrest. It was not unheard of for a noble to fabricate a failed assassination in order to remove a rival via law enforcement, but I required a different kind of help.

"That is what I want to find out, Inspector. I have no idea."

He rose an eyebrow at that. "Damn, you really don't know, do you? Well, that makes this both easier and more difficult." He reached for a file on his desk. "One of the attackers was a Julius Peet, a worker in Manufaktorum 197-AL. The other was Willa Drouton, a former political agitator in her district. Have you met them before?"

"No. I was never in the lower hive."

"Well, investigations down there are neither easy nor supposed to happen..."

I pulled a 100 throne bill out of my pocket and placed it on the table to shut him up. It worked.

"But in face of extraordinary circumstances, it will be done anyway. Do you want to come with me?"

"Would I be useful? I have never been there and have no idea how to do this sort of work?"

"If you continue spending money like this, there will be no problems. And it would be better if no paperwork about this affair would have to appear at all."

I was not sure about this idea, but I had few other options. So I agreed.

Hastings grapped his coat and fedora and soon afterwards, we sat in an enforcer car and more on the way into the lower hive. The Inspector had taken the time to hand me another coat similar to his own to conceal my uniform.

"Stay calm", Hastings set as we approached spiral road downwards into the steps of the hive, "and be ready to act in any way necessary. Don't worry to much, the lower hive is better than its reputation." __

 _If you say so. I just hope you're right._


	3. Chapter 2: First battles

AN: My excuse is the same as the last time.

Kira-Katashi: You beat me by five hours. Well played and a good chapter from you, as always.

* * *

The first attempt had not gone as planned. It had been expected, poor rage-filled citizens with no training and poor weapons were obviously no great assassins and so the chosen two had failed. Expected, but still a pity. Their success would have made the other steps of the plan easier. It didn't matter that much as more assassins and more important targets on Kayco, and Damien Ravencrown was no actual important target, his death merely a propaganda victory. Still, there was also no shortage of angry citizens who could be made into tools and another attempt might be worth the little effort.

The forces behind the latest events snickered and cackled at the change the future might bring and the action they would take. With a fresh crusade starting from this sector, the local imperial troops would be greatly diminished and not ready to defend it. This was a chance they might get in centuries, and they were determined to take it. The entire sector would soon enough be a playground of the Ruinous Powers, and those who made that happen would reap their just rewards.

It would still take more time was the only chance could not be wasted and the might of the Imperium was not broken yet. If this was handled wrong, imperial reinforcements would perhaps arrive in time to stop the chosen believers, so caution was advised for now.

Moving through the various layers of the hive was an interest experience, as with every layer further down the surroundings got poorer and more decrepit. The enforcer car made sure we quickly moved past the various security checkpoints, and I wondered where my two attackers had gotten the necessary clearances. Getting upwards in the hive was supposed to be really difficult, and even more so for those without great wealth. The files on both attackers told quite clearly that neither of them possessed the resources needed to get up here. So there to be someone with more influence supporting them to get into the spires. But this was an investigation that would probably require more than two men to carry out. For now, looking into the personal backgrounds of my attackers would have to suffice.

Julius Peet's place was closer, so Hastings stopped there first. It was a miserable neighborhood, dozens of decrepit hab blocks covered in graffiti, with small groups of obvious narco-gangers standing at corners and going about their business. It was a reflex to put one hand on my gun, but I did manage to suppress it for now. The enforcer MRAP we used was quite heavily armored and had a heavy stubber on top, so your chances in a shootout were quite good as long as we stayed inside. But we were not here to arrest people for drug violations, and Hastings was quick to assure me that there would be no trouble. Attacking someone involved in a murder case was something the local gangs sought to avoid, as doing so would bring more enforcers with more equipment or even the PDF down here, which was the last thing the gangs wanted.

So the gang members did nothing but stare as we stepped outside and moved towards the doors of the hab on the left. The outer doors had been broken down, probably years ago, The smell of this place would normally have been enough to make me leave immediately, yet these were no normal circumstances. The lift was also wrecked, so Hastings and I took the stairs after finding the name among those next to the doorbell. The seventh floor was the correct one, the corridor partially covered in garbage, with even more graffiti on the walls. Another person in a hoodie saw us and made a swift exit.

The bell of Peet's apartment was not working, and knocking provided no result. Seemingly well versed in doing so, Hastings to a look to the left and to the right before taking out a few fine tools and picking the lock. The old thing gave way without much resistance, and we both entered, both with hands on our weapons.

The flat was in a dreadful state, just as this whole part of the hive seemingly was. Dirty dishes and empty cardboard boxes were everywhere, as were quite many liquor bottles. We carefully moved on. This flat was supposed to have four rooms, the first three of which were mostly empty, save for cheap, old furniture, a bed, desk and wardrobe each. They would be searched later, after this place was secured. The door to the fourth room was locked, and Hastings got tense as he listened. There was someone inside, so much I understood.

As quietly as possible, I drew my weapon while Hastings took a step back and gave the door a solid kick. It flew open, and someone inside gasped. We entered, and found an old man in ragged clothing, a knife in a shaking fist. Seeing the difference in armament, he dropped it and rose his hands.

"Who are you?", Hastings asked as he lowered his pistol.

"Almond Balbis is my name. I am a friend of Julius Peet." His voice was as shaky as his hands.

"That's bad luck for you. You see, the dear Julius tried to murder this young gentleman here just yesterday. All of his associates are to be questioned on the matter." The old man turned pale like milk.

I let Hastings do the talking, he was the expert after all. For now, I was content with listening and watching how this was done by a professional.

"J tried to murder someone? That is preposterous! He would never do something like this! Where is he?"

"He did it already. There are dozens of witnesses, plus several security cameras and clear forensic evidence."

"Where is he? You're avoiding the question."

"The victim of his assault was forced to use force in self defense, with fatal results for the attacker."

Balbis turned even paler, even that seemed to be impossible and sank onto a nearby chair. I would have felt compassion if I had not been shot at barely a day ago. Now, I was angry enough to watch silently as Hastings did his thing.

It took a while for the inspector to get anything out of the old man, but in the end, years of experience in law enforcement did their job. Julius Peet's two brothers had been forcefully conscripted into the Imperial Army after being caught by the enforcers in some criminal endeavor. The government was always eager to find more recruits for the crusade without sending their own troops, trained at great expense, and sending convicted criminals to the front instead was something they loved nearly as much as crushing protest movements, high taxes and endless red tape.

Hastings worked wonders given how strongly Balbis obviously disliked talking to us. He got a list of associates and friends of the dead, along with their addresses, but not much more. Perhaps he would have been more successful, however, the sound of hasty, heavy steps in the corridor got our attention. The inspector and I grapped our guns and took the little cover the doorframe could provide, waiting if those steps truly belonged to someone trying to storm the flat.

The steps slowed down as they came closer, and another sound became audible: The clicking of guns being cocked and safeties being disengaged. From what I could tell, there were at least three weapons outside, perhaps more. No good odds, but they might be worse.

A grenade was flung through the front door, and we dove fully behind the walls next to the door. A bang and the sound of shrapnel digging into the surroundings followed a second later. Our now clear enemies waited for about to additional before they charged in.

The adrenaline surge was probably something I would never get used to, and hoped it would not become necessary. As things were, the chances appeared to be rather bad. Time seemed to slow down, not much, but enough to make a difference. My hands clutched around my weapon, and I felt how was ready to do what I had done before, and it terrified me. Yet there was not really another choice to get out of this mess, no matter how much I would have liked one.

Our attackers rushed in, guns blazing indiscriminately. Four of them, apparently local gang members by the looks of their clothes and tattoos. Their weapons were stub automatics and revolvers, all of them small enough to be easily concealed. They sprayed bullets all over the place, riddling walls and furniture. With the grenade already used, they likely hoped everyone in here was already dealt with. To their bad luck, they were mistaken.

Hastings and I opened fire simultaneously, leaning out of our cover after the first volley was over, the automatic burst of my Hecuter supported by the pistol Hastings had drawn. The first two gangers went down, hit by about a dozen rounds in total. More bullets flew at us in return, and we both withdrew again. Hastings took a quick peak out of his cover and fired a single aimed shot, and a successful one, judging by the sound of a body hitting the ground that followed. More bullets hit his cover, and I waited. Upon hearing a magazine falling to the floor, I took my turn to peak out. It was proven to be a bad idea, for my enemy had chosen to draw another gun instead of reloading the empty one. I barely had taken aim when he opened fire. He was frothing at the mouth, probably the result of some sort of drug, and seemed to feel no pain, since he seemed unbothered by the holes my rounds left in his body. With a seeming calm so unfitting for his state, he rose the small revolver in a large, muscular hand. There were more bangs, and I felt to hits to my chest in rapid succession, just before we both fell. The difference between our respective situation was that I was wearing an armored uniform and had been shot with a small revolver, while he had been hit by multiple armor-piercing rounds and had no kind of protection aside from ragged clothing. His fall was a lot more final than mine as a result.

However, I was not used to being shot at yet, and while the bullets had been stopped, they still hurt like hell. Hastings helped me up and we left the blood-splattered apartment with all haste, unwilling to wait if more people around were hungry for our blood. The pain was a, well, painful reminder that I was in over my head, and had no real idea how to deal with anything related to the attempt on my life. Following the inspector here had been interesting and exciting until the gunfight started, but was not cut out for this. It had been a bad idea and way to much of risk.

Part of me was quick to point out that I was better, would train more and gather more experience, this could change, but common sense dictated to leave this behind and focus on the rest of my life. The internal argument would continue for a while, but at least for now, common sense won.

The ride home was not exactly pleasant. Every bumb on the street sent spikes of pain through my chest, and as the adrenaline left, it got worse. Hastings had looked at my injuries and judged them to be harmless, if painful.

"You'll get used to it eventually. Good on your part to wear functional armor. Too many new guys forget that while going in undercover, and the regret is often far to late." That was all the veteran inspector had to say on the matter.

"I doubt I will get used to this any time soon. My leave from the academy will soon be over, and I have learned that this is a job you would definitively leave to the professionals."

"More wisdom than I learned to expect from young nobles. Your kind often has a tendency to get into stuff way above their heads."

"I know the stereotype well enough, and spend a fair share of time trying to avoid the usual mistakes."

Home was still a rather nice place, and as always, Simon was there to keep me company. I was a loss, the bad part of realizing self-destructive behavior. Now I had to find something else to do without losing my mind. I wrote a letter to Victoria, a mess of my emotions and worry, and send it to the astropathic choir. Given my relatively low military rank would might take months for it to reach her, but I wanted her to know I cared. I also wrote to our friends, hoping that they could answer sooner.

Again, I had killed someone in what could rightfully called self defense, and given my choice of career, it had probably only caused the inevitable to happen earlier than expected. Still, I felt miserable, even if the pain made me feel a lot better about having shot back.

My self pity and attempt to focus entirely on my cat were cut short the sound of the doorbell of Ravencrown Manor. It was a most unusual occasion aside from the few times my friends and I had met here and order food from a delivery service. With the nervousness about everything that had happened in the last time, I approached the door carefully, my Hecuter hidden behind my back. What I could see on the screen linked to the security camera was something I had expected even less than an assassin or an unordered food delivery. I put the gun away and opened the door.

"Philippa? What are you doing here?"

* * *

Planet Gamma CXII, as the world was yet without a proper name, had for countless years been a safe haven for all manners of criminals and exiles from the region behind the veil. The remote nature and lack of a central ruler had provided many chances to hide, lick wounds and engage in shady business of any kind, and a few key people in all the neighboring factions had simply taken the bribes they were offered to keep looking the other way.

These times were over, and Gamma CXII would be changed forever. The planet's form filled many of the screens on the bridge of the Appropriate Vengeance, and the ravages of the short yet brutal battle were all to obvious. Much of the forests covering the equatorial area of the planet burned, either due to orbital bombardment of hidden bases or the shattered wrecks of those pirate ships who had not fled soon enough. The cities fared little better, some had been taken by imperial forces, others had also been simply obliterated, the cost of taking them judged to high for the measly gain.

The _Appropriate Vengeance_ had arrived first, along with two cruisers and a few escorts, trying to bait the defenders into staying and fighting. And while many of the locals had either seen through the ruse or realized that their odds were still terrible, enough of them had decided to take the chance and fight. Their fleet had been in close formation, a perfect target for the second group of imperial ships, who arrived a short time later, hoping for this kind of mistake.

Four Dominator class cruisers, _Deadly Message_ , _Holy Radiance_ , _Iron Faith_ and _Pious Will_ , had left the warp at once, and wasted no time to fire their Nova Cannons. All four of these ancient and terrifying weapons aimed into the enemy cluster, annihilating small ships and crippling several larger ones. On this devastating signal, the Appropriate Vengeance and her escorts advanced into the fray, while the third battlegroup, let by the battleship _Flaming Righteousness_ and three heavy cruisers emerged to the galactic west, to cut of the enemy escape route. Trapped between two battleships and their escorts, the defending fleet was swiftly taken out, while the Dominators turned their attention to the stations orbiting the planet. They too fell soon, their crews in panic and often ill-trained and therefore unable to provide any real threat or resistance. Merely two hours after the first imperial vessel had entered the system, His Navy had achieved total orbital superiority, most of the planetary defense weapons left by gunners who saw the inevitable. Bombers, fighters and landing craft darkened the skies as ground forces descended to claim what remained of value. Yet this was supposed to be both a quick battle and a first large-scale test of the once again merged imperial forces, and while the officers on the ground would often have many requests for orbital support in earlier times, only for those to fall on deaf, uncaring ears, now those same officers were able to order such actions, or were the direct subordinates of those who were. This cooperation worked wonders, surpassing most estimations in terms of improvements of battlefield performance drastically.

Victoria stood on the bridge, enjoying how the tension in her body slowly faded away and made room for a feeling of satisfaction. Her work here was done for now, and her plan had been a good one. The resistance on the surface would soon enough crumble to dust, and a full third of the fleet was still in reserve and therefore something the survivors of the attack didn't know about. This in turn meant that anyone questioning these survivors might get a false image of the crusade's strength, and would hopefully make mistakes on the basis of such assumptions. Still, the fleet had to be ready for a potential counterattack, even if it was unlikely for one to be made at this point. The recon vessel were already on their way, and a handful of enemy ships had surrendered towards the end of the battle. If their commanders gave correct information, they could perhaps be allowed to serve the Imperium from now on rather than facing a firing squad. Of course, their new duty would essentially be that of cannon fodder, but bad chances of survival were still better than none.

And in spite of the victory, her mind was filled with concern. This might just have been the equivalent of poking into a hornet's nest, an action that would neither be overlooked nor ignored by the powers of this part of space, whose strengths and abilities were all but unknown for now. This had been an easy battle, the ones to follow were most unlikely to be the same kind. Any faction that managed to control several systems would without much doubt have a capable military with great knowledge of the local area and no small amount of determination when facing what they considered outside invaders.

All around her, the crew remained calm, and if they felt triumphant or proud for the day, they didn't dare to show it while their commanding officer stayed quiet and seemingly grim. Realizing that not appreciating success might be bad for the morale and remembering her history lessons, especially how the heroes of old always had an inspiring speech of some sort at hand, Victoria allowed herself to relax somewhat physically. She took a deep breath and smiled before raising her voice.

"You all have done the Emperor's work today, and all of you have done so well. This world his but the first to be lead into His Light, to be freed of the scum that dares to defy mankind's true purpose, its rights and His Divine Will. From this day on, the xeno and the heretic know that even here they are not save from His Fury and the righteous efforts of His Loyal Followers! Their filth will be purged from this realm with faith and fire, so that their rotten souls may suffer eternally in the next! He cannot be denied! The Imperium cannot be denied! And through combined effort, the glorious light of the Holy Terra shall turn this sector into a new paradise of mankind! There remains much work to be done, and blood of martyrs will have to be spilled, but all those who partake in this crusade will sit by His Side once their time comes! Rest for now and celebrate. Soon enough the vile and corrupted of this realm will rise to face us, and through His blessing and our strength, we shall cast them down and plunge them into the inferno they deserve!"

Silence fell onto the bridge for a moment, just before the cheering began. A quick-thinking vox operator had made sure the entire fleet could hear the speech, and with her work for the day done, Victoria retreated, carefully maintaining her happy posture until the door of her suite fell shut behind her.

Only then could she truly consider any hind of true relaxation. So she took the chance to sink into an armchair for a while, hoping that there would be very little to do for her for the next time. The current situation would be handled by the commanders on the ground, while the fleet would remain passive except for the scouts and the few ships still on bombardment duty. Any centers of resistance on the surface had already by incinerated or captured, and from the latest reports, the remaining pirates down there were in no position to seriously threaten the imperial forces.

Yet this welcome reprieve did not last for long. Victoria had spend about an hour napping when the silence in her chambers was torn apart by the ship's siren. Knowing that no one on the ship would conduct a drill just after a battle and without telling their superiors, it had to be both something real and serious to cause a general alarm.

She rushed back to the bridge, barely recognizing how security personnel assumed formation around her. The command center was already in full, action, and the strategic map showed a lot of new signatures in the south west of the system.

"Sensorium, report!", she yelled, even though the map seemed up to date.

"Twenty-eight plus vessels entering sensor range from the south west. Power signatures and structure scans indicate ork design, eleven of them cruiser tonnage or heavier. Multiple warp rifts point to more xenos still leaving the warp."

"Call the Dominators and tell them to focus the enemy center! And get Flaming Righteousness closer! All ships are free to fire at will!"

Ignoring the hasty confirmation of her orders, Victoria grapped the internal vox and called the _Appropriate Vengeance's_ main fire control center. The enemy fleet was accelerating, changing into a rough wedge formation, while their prow weapons fired wildly despite being out of range on anything.

"Fire control, lock onto the lead enemy capital ship. Staggered barrage, macros first followed by lances. Maximum power output on all energy weapons. Load the secondary dorsal cannons with atomics, but keep those in reserve."

Part of Victoria's mind was somewhat frightened by her own determination and the ease with which she had just ordered the preparation of such deadly, ancient weaponry, but any doubts were swiftly crushed. These were xenos, abdominations against the Emperor's Light, and as such they were to be eradicated by any and all means available to His servants. And as a sidenote, it might convince those assholes in the Ordo Prefectus to stop searching for an excuse of getting rid of her.

Most of the fleet moved to meet the xenos more or less head on for the moment, waiting for the right time to turn their broadsides towards the orks once they came into effective range. The four Dominators fired a volley, but it was far less of a devastating strike than before. Firing while still turning on fast moving targets caused to of the shells to miss. The third one scored a direct hit on an ork cruiser and wrecked most of its left side guns. The forth shell detonated between to escorts and shredded both, but didn't hit anything else. Thousands of crewmembers made all haste to reload the nova cannons, but the xenos moved too fast. There would only be one further volley before they would have to maneuver in a way that would move most of the enemy formation out of the nova cannons' rather limited firing arcs.

The _Flaming Righteousness_ moved on full engine power to catch up to the _Appropriate Vengeance_ , and once she arrived, both battleships opened fire with their main batteries, and the cruisers all around joined in. Salvo upon salvo of torpedoes was launched while macrocannons filled the void with massive shells and lance turrets seemed to cut void into various parts with rays of light.

Very things in the known universe could stand up the firepower of capital ships, and even while the first barrage was not the best in terms of coordination, many imperial captains had worked together and knew where to focus their fire. The xeno ships were durable, their front especially covered in armor extremely thick even by voidship standards. Still, multiple enemy cruisers did not survive the storm of destruction let loose against them. The second nova cannon volley came and wrecked half a dozen vessels of different sizes, yet the orks still pressed on, unbothered by the deaths of untold thousands of their comrades. They shot back, still at long range for their primitive targeting systems, but what they lacked in accuracy they made up in sheer volume of fire. The shields of the imperial fleet screeched under the strain, and several of them failed. The Tyrant-class cruiser _Blessed Sanction_ suffered multiple catastrophic hits that destroyed the ship's prow entirely. Escort squadron Hotel was completely wiped out in seconds, and more such fates were lost as the number of reports overwhelmed the capabilities of the communications and tacticae officers onboard the Appropriate Vengeance. The ancient battleship itself lost more than a third of its shields in a few moments of facing the hail of shots.

Worse still, the leader of the ork fleet seemed to have recognized the _Appropriate Vengeance_ imperial flagship, and in move so characteristic behavior for these nonhuman barbarians, the massive hulk at the tip of the enemy formation turned in an obvious challenge. The ork ship had lost most of its shields and its rusted hull had been hit dozens of times, but normal weapon fire seemed unable to do real damage to the enormous vessel.

Yet it would be fool's choice to take such a challenge, and xenos did not deserve and honorable fight. In addition, Victoria had never been a fan of dueling. While the _Appropriate Vengeance_ was less than half as long as its foe and had maybe a fifth of its mass, the imperial battleship and her crew had no intention of fighting fair or alone. The tried and true approach of the staggered barrage did its work, macrocannons stripped away the remains of the enemy shields, and at the now short range, the lance strikes on their highest power setting that followed cut through armor with little effort, no matter how think it was. Layers of steel many meters thick were vaporized within moments and the atmosphere within sections hit burned away. The damage would have crippled any ship build by men, perhaps aside of the ships of the the legions of the Great Crusade, yet this kind of ork vessel was almost indestructible unless vital components suffered direct hits, and those were hard to find.

The ork ship turned further to have its massive, maw-shaped prow face the imperial flagship, and in doing so, it did expose its rear to the waiting _Flaming Righteousness_. The other battleship fired a full broadside directly into its engines. With the shields already down, the engine block was one of the few rather vulnerable parts of the hulk, and so the effects of a full barrage were disastrous for the target, and the hulk suddenly lost all accelerating. Yet it still had its teeth, and the prow guns fired into the _Appropriate Vengeance_ at the very same short range. The two thirds of its shield generators went into emergency shutdown, and the remaining ones were temporarily overloaded to keep the shields up. It was the time to play an ace you had up your sleeve.

"Fire the atomics!"

The bridge was now a loud mess filled with yelling, alarms and warning lights. Still, her orders were apparently heard, as the secondary dorsal battery opened fire. The warheads, dozens of times stronger than normal shells of their size hit the giant metal maw of the ork ship in a series of blinding flashes of light, and no amount of rusting armor could stop them. The first hit wiped out the enemy's prow weapons, the following ones turned the first two kilometers of the hulk into a rapidly expanding cloud of shrapnel and molten slag.

The second series of explosions came from the huge amounts of ammunition the xenos had stored without any kind of safety measures. More debris was blown into space and it became obvious that even this kind of monstrous vessel could not survive this kind of damage. Victoria could only watch in awe as the fire ravaged the the remaining parts of the ship. The shields of the _Appropriate Vengeance_ were in the process of being raised again, and the decimated xenos fleet seemed to lose their will to fight upon seeing their flagship going down in flames.

Yet there as much danger in space debris from a battle, and such a ship had needed unimaginable amounts of energy to operate, even in the shoddy state of ork engineering. _Appropriate Vengeance_ and the _Flaming Righteousness_ had just begun to turn their guns towards the other ships and Victoria Ravencrown had barely managed to give the next set of directions to her crew when the wreckage began to glow in an unbearably bright light. Everyone who could see the light instinctively braced for impact. Two seconds later, the hulk's reactor deck exploded.


	4. Chapter 3: The end of the beginning

AN: Well, this took way too long to be finished.

* * *

The shields had just been raised again, only to be blasted back into oblivion.

The shockwave hit the right side of the _Appropriate Vengeance_ and send the old ship tumbling out of control. Dozens of new alarms erupted all over the vessel as flying debris crashed into its armor. Hundreds onboard died where the plating gave way and whole sections were sucked into the cold void. The command center was thrown from a well organized mess into a real, chaotic one, and even here, in the most heavily armored part of the vessel, injuries were commonplace. Yet a death toll of a few hundred and more wounded was very little for a battleship in a fleet engagement, and thanks to the barely reactivated shields, the actual damage was not too bad. The orks turned about seeing their flagship meet such a violent end, and the Appropriate Vengeance limbed away, screened by the _Flaming Righteousness_ and the heavy cruisers _True Passion_ and _Loyal Guardian_.

Still, with the shield generators in serious danger of overheating after the shields fell twice in a row, rushing back into the fight would have been foolish. So the flagship retreated, its turrets still firing. The Dominators advanced to close the gap, turning to their broadside gun batteries to wreck on target after the other. With the orks in a hasty retreat, the fleet battered and the reserve not here yet, the imperial forces turned their attention towards the damage they had received and also back to the planet below.

Was this world worth the price paid to conquer it? Probably not really, all things considered. And yet there had not been much of a choice here. A retreat would have required to abandon the troops already send to the surface, in addition to the hit the morale would have taken from such an act. What remained now were the questions of if, how and when the orks would come back. Their kind did so nearly always, unless they were wiped out or found what they considered to be better pickings.

The operations on the surface would continue for the time being, until all resistance was rooted out. Already most of the fleet's aerospace units had been busy doing just that. It had taken them away from the fight in space, but in return allowed the ground forces to annihilate all opposition.

The cities were most likely the biggest problem, crawling with enemies who knew the terrain, and often the enemy strongholds were too close to important facilities like starports to be bombarded from orbit. They had to be taken by infantry, and even with air superiority and tank support, this was always bloody business. No doubts were present about the outcome of these actions since the Imperium controlled the system could, if necessary, drown the pirates in dead bodies. Still, many defenders continued to fight, even after their defeat had become obvious.

Outside of the population centers, the Imperial Army had far fewer reservation about leveling dozens of square kilometers to get rid of a even a small group of enemies. All known position received one demand for immediate and total surrender, and the cruisers _Iron Faith_ and _Pious Will_ were ordered to destroy all who refused in the wilderness. The impacts of their efforts could be seen from orbit, and after a some of the renegade forces who had tried to entrench were turned to ash, the survivors often took the chance to live through this.

The fleet now moved to anchor in orbit, and those ships who had not participated in the battle were ordered to move into the system and watch over those who had. Then began the process of repairing and counting losses. It would take time, and few ships, such as the _Blessed Sanction_ , would have to be send back to proper imperial worlds to be taken care of. It was only a first engagement, and if this first taste was to be trusted, the future would be bloody indeed.

* * *

Lieutenant William Jesse of the 19th Silasian Grenadier Regiment send the second squad through the debris-covered streets the northern part of what the Tacticae assumed to be the capital of this world. The soldiers advanced under the cover of their chimeras, scanning the area for enemies. The pirates who had ruled this world were numerous, although they lacked discipline and many had already surrendered. The remaining ones had realized that the imperial fleet would not shoot at anything close to their own soldiers on the ground. The job to storm this part of the city had been given to the grenadiers due to their heavy carapace armor and large numbers of special weapon units, something the scattered pirates would not be able to deal with.

The biggest problem so far was the distinction between enemy fighters and noncombatants. Since this world had been a haven for violent criminals, nearly everyone here looked like someone who might just pull out a gun and shoot you as soon as you weren't looking, and no small amount of locals had done or tried exactly that. As a result, the advance had slowed down to a crawl of cautions movement and hectic shootouts. Armored vehicles and generous airstrikes made it a whole lot easier, but the process was still slow and arduous.

Shots were fired about a hundred meters down the road, a mixture of las and projectile weapons, most of them small arms. The involved first squad wasted no time with trying to bring the occupied building down on their own, instead, they send a few vox signals. Thirty seconds later, an Avenger fired several missiles into the building and blew the whole structure to bits. About a kilometer to the east, multiple fighters were busy strafing another target, and behind the grenadiers, a tank column began to move up to support them. All in all, more than two hundred thousand imperial soldiers were deployed into this city, about a quarter of all imperial troops currently on the surface.

Jesse grapped his hellgun and gestured for his own squad to get moving again. Slowly they made their way down the street, carefully eyeing into every shadow, always ready to jump for the next piece of cover. The tanks behind them closed the distance for the most part, their turrets following the movements the infantry made.

The roar of a heavy stub rifle tore through the air, and Trooper Gavin went down as the bullet smashed into his chest plate. He was not dead, the blessing of the Golden Throne and his carapace armor keeping relatively safe and well. Jesse and the rest of the squad spotted the muzzle flash from the third floor of a house about seventy meters away. Eight hellguns and one plasma gun opened up, dozens of shots hammering into the stone wall. Seeing the plight of their foot slogging comrades, the first of the tanks turned its turret and its battle cannon joined the barrage, turning much of the facade of the old house into a rapidly expanding cloud of dust and splinters.

"Those guys make us look like idiots", someone muttered into the squad vox afterwards. Gavin got back up, shaking somewhat at first before regaining his composure. Everyone in the squad had been hit a few times already in their careers, and against most types of small arms, their armor worked wonders to keep them both alive and ready to fight.

The vicious street fighting would last for two further days until the last of the defenders were found and wiped out. The 19th would suffer several hundred casualties in the process, but in the end, the Imperial Army was unstoppable for the locals. In a joined effort with the 203rd Mechanized Cadian and the 607th Steel Legion Mobile Artillery, the last nest of the resistance in the capital, situated in the northern industrial area was surrounded, bombarded and finally overrun. By the time the infantry advanced onto the premises, most those inside were already dead, blown to bits or crushed under the shattered remains of the buildings.

Jesse and his squad rushed into the building, guns blazing, through a hole in the factory wall, left there by a tank shell. A few rounds were fired in their direction, but most enemies were more or less stunned by a salvo of artillery missiles a Praetor had launched through the factory's roof, or blinded by the smoke and dust from the collapsed masonry. The lieutenant send the rest of the platoon forward as their hellguns howled in return, preysense goggles ensuring that neither smoke nor dust could hide their enemies. The fight was soon over, the confrontation between hellguns and carapace armor on one side against stubbers and uniforms on the other turned out to be as short and onesided as it was to be expected. The platoon lost two soldiers for more than thirty enemies slain, with the firefight dying down after about two minutes.

Colonel Nero of the 203rd and Colonel Hargrave of the 607th met in the front of one of the ruined factories, after the shooting had died down. The ruins were swiftly secured, as the few people still alive took the small window of time to surrender. All who did were shackled and send to the Ordo Prefectus for interrogation. Most imperial soldiers had little love for the commissariat, and Lord Commissar Milton was downright hated by almost everyone, but their effectiveness in breaking could not really be questioned. They would get their intel, sooner or later and one way or the other. Thinking about Milton made many feel even a little sorry for their enemies. The Praetors of the 607th took position here to lend their firepower to all nearby imperial units who might be attacked by stray enemies in the blasted streets. Over the next hour, they would fire a handful of salvoes, but the main fight here was over.

* * *

Inquisitor Eleanor Jaspin watched with a mixture of interest and disgust as the soldiers checked the bridge of the Rogue Trader ship she had chartered to scout the region beyond the veil. Her task was to make contact with those factions on the other side who might be assimilated into the Imperium peacefully. For several months she had only found heretics and barely controllable scum, until Rogue Trader Cedric Harmon had made contact with what appeared to be an advanced human civilization without mutations and no worshipping of the Ruinous Powers. Harmon and his cronies had made contact and in true Rogue Trader fashion, they had wasted no time to make money. However, the civilization in question took rather drastic measures to protect the locations of their worlds. All contact was to made in one specified point. From there, all outside ships would be escorted on a hidden route, while armsmen squads made sure the outsiders deactivated all devices able to mark the route. As two Styx-class heavy cruisers and a Repulsive-class grand cruiser along with eight frigates were waiting at the meeting spot, even the most stubborn Rogue Trader knew better than to try and refuse their rules.

So far, the soldiers who had come on board looked human. They wore grey flak armor and uniforms, their faces hidden behind their rebreathers. Harmon had played along and shut down most of the navigational equipment. After they had checked that, the soldiers had taken positions along the walls, to be out of the way of the crew. One of the heavy cruisers and three escorts surrounded the ship, to lead them. If everything worked as planned, the Rogue Trader would simply follow the heavy cruiser without any deviation. Doing so would bring them to the same destination without requiring anything but engine power from the escorted.

The engines in question were set to maximum output, and reality was torn apart as the warp drive was turned on. If you were on a good ship like this one, entering the immaterium didn't even feel that bad, although the implications were of course nightmarish for those who knew what this meant. But mist people even on board of a voidship didn't, and were spared the horror by blessed ignorance. Harmon had not been told how long the warp journey would last, so all the captain could to was to shoot venomous glances to those who occupied his bridge. Jaspin was even worse of, as the authority of the Inquisition would seem worthless to people who had no idea who she worked for. She would have to play the clueless passenger until she could reach someone with the power necessary to begin meaningful negotiations.

Four days later, a message from the Styx informed Captain Harmon about the impending end of their warp journey. He was given a dock number and a list of the rules and regulations of their destination, along with a warning that any suspicious behavior could result in the destruction of his ship, while the crew was exposed to the full extent of the local laws. Almost certain, some of the crewmembers on shore leave would get in conflict with said laws, but the crew was large enough to take such small losses.

According to the documents they had been given, the world below was called Sylvania, and was the capital world of a nation known as the Sylvanian Protectorate. It appeared to be a well developed hive world, ruled by an autocrat with the title of Carmine Ascendant. To the frustration of the Inquisitor, no more details about this civilization were revealed to the newcomers, aside from laws who were largely similar to those of most imperial ports. The only real difference was the lack of rules regarding blasphemy, but for people without the Emperor's Light such shortcomings were to be expected.

Yet leave was not something to be granted lightly on a barely known world, a world that made little effort to be welcoming to strangers. When Harmon docked onto a space station in high orbit, the captain of the Styx made clear that all personnel leaving the ship would have to go through extensive security checks, as would all cargo. Seeing that this process would take ages if applied to every person aboard, Harmon allowed only the people he trusted to actually leave.

Jaspin was of course not someone any sane Rogue Trader would trust, but she had hired him and was therefore the exception to confirm the rule. She also preferred to work alone on a planet, with her staff remaining in the relative safety of their transport. Not that any place in a potentially soon-to-be hostile system was ever truly safe, but it was better than having a strangely mixed group of specialists enter foreign territory without much of a fitting excuse. On weird stranger with rare skills might be fugitive, an eccentric or a wealthy fool, a well working team however screamed "spies!" all over the place.

The security checks were quite thorough, but the Inquisition trained its operatives very well to smuggle things past such controls. Still, the copy of the laws provided to the imperials made no mention of weapons, body armor and communication equipment being illegal and while the inspectors took careful notes of the parts of her gear they were able to identify. After that, she was left in one of the public areas of the station, a place not to different from many in the Imperium, aside from the iconography. From what the sensors on the ship had told her, the world was in constant twilight, and as a result, the locals were for the most part rather pale. The station seemed to contain the usual shops and restaurants, although there was very little activity here. Outside visitors were probably a rarity, given how the approach was handled. Most Rogue Traders would rather turn tail and run rather than letting unknown soldiers onto their bridge, and if this planet was this paranoid, they would have a different station for their regular traffic. Which made it far more likely that this place was covered in surveillance equipment.

It took Jaspin a few seconds to find the way to the shuttle hangar. A civilian pilot greeted her without a word, and the Inquisitor paid with a single gold coin. Harmon had acquired some of the local currency through means he had not told her, and his exchange rates probably bordered on robbery, but the work of the Golden Throne was worth any amount of coin. The flight to the surface took about then minutes, and another security check later, Jaspin stood on a landing pad overlooking a part of a massive hive. She did not have much time to get a view, as she realized half a dozen figures approached her.

One of them looked like an airport official, the other five were soldiers. Their carapace armor showed that they were part of some elite unit, and weapons, which appeared to be a bizarre hybrid of a hot shot volley gun and a T'au infantry rifle, were held in a way that was just a little more polite than aiming at her face while keeping that an easy possibility. Without all the other guards nearby, Jaspin might have considered taking her chances in a fight, although those chances would already have been bad. With the circumstances in mind, she choice the other option and adopted the most arrogant pose she could muster. Often enough, soldiers would react to someone showing authority, no matter how unjustified that authority was.

The soldiers stopped a few meters from her, and the official left in a hurry, obviously happy to get out of dodge. One of the soldiers bowed his head slightly without relaxing his stance.

"You have been expected, Mamzel Jaspin. We are here to escort you to a meeting spot."

"I know nothing of such a meeting, and this is already an outrage! Why would I accompany you?"

"I'm afraid I have to insist on that, ma'am. The Ascendant was very clear with his orders."

 _Shit. Holy Throne, this is not going well._ Of course, to maintain the illusion, one had to adapt swiftly to the situation and pretend what happened a second ago never occurred. It would look dishonest, arrogant and idiotic, but this was many people would expect from entitled nobles from far away. Prejudice of this kind could work wonders if it was used correctly and played by good actor.

"If this truly is the case, you may of course escort me to a waiting vehicle. Leaving His Majesty waiting would be abhorrent."

Behind the visors of their helmets, the faces of the soldiers were hidden, but their posture told Jaspin that her tactic had not worked completely. They were still in the position to turn on her in any moment. However, they seemed to relax just a little, thinking she was indeed just some crazy foreigner with no idea about the real world. A useful disguise, as few would considered someone like that to be a serious threat.

With howling engines, a gun cutter descended on one of the pads close by. The soldiers took positions around her, and Jaspin led the way, her head held high to show any onlookers and cameras that she was in charge of this, just like the character she was playing would. Going by her current analysis, she might be able to take down two or three of the guards before one of the others would have taken aim and pulled the trigger. As of now, this was a fight she would not win, but it would probably get far worse. If Jaspin was to be brought before the Ascendant, the security there was almost guaranteed to be through the roof.

* * *

I was stunned for a brief moment. To my latest knowledge, Phillipa had been supposed to be completely busy with some sort of family matter for at least another week. She had told me this personally. And yet she stood here, and from the expression on her face, she appeared to be downright miserable. She had been crying, there there were still a few tears in her first reaction was to take a step forward and give her a hug. She hugged me back, and I winced and regretted it. The bruises on my chest hurt like under even the slightest pressure.

Phillipa stepped back. "Damien, what happened to you? You look terrible!"

To be fair, she was entirely correct. The exhaustion from the gunfight, the pain and not sleeping enough had all left their marks. I could really use a fresh change of clothes, a shower, a shave and good meal. However, while a close friend was clear in some sort of distress, such pleasantries would have to wait.

"I could say the same, but let's go inside first. The doorway is not the best place to talk about important things."

The living room appeared to be a more fitting place, and a cup of tea seemed to calm Phillipa down somewhat, although her hands were still a little shaky.

"Now, tell me what happened. You're always welcome here, but this is obviously not a regular visit."

"You've met my parents?"

I had met Phillipa's parents once, and they had seemed to be relatively decent individuals, if a little stuck up and slightly condescending in the way of those who believed they always knew best. But the pain in her usually soft voice as well as the expression of pain that twisted her face told me that something terrible had happened.

"Anyway, the problem is that they got it into their heads that I have to marry someone, no matter whom, as long as he or she is wealthy and or well connected. They've set me a throne-damned ultimatum. If I don't find someone within the next two weeks, they'll try it, and if they don't succeed or I don't marry whom they choose, I will be disowned and kicked out."

I was speechless for a moment, trying to wrap my head around the story. I failed, but I knew at least some things I could do.

"You can stay here as long as you want. Let's get a room prepared for you."

She nodded weakly. Ravencrown Manor had more than thirty rooms for an extended family and all guests who might visit, and almost all of them were empty. With the assistance of the housekeeping servitors, one of them was swiftly turned into a comfortable state. Simon, the trusty therapy cat he was, had already began to purr and rub himself against her legs. Phillipa fell asleep very quickly, the cat curled up in her arm. It was a heartwarming, cute scene, even in the face of the tragedy that let to it.

I stayed awake for another half hour, just taking the time to place some of Victoria's old clothes on a chair. After doing that and taking the long overdue shower, I too went to bed. Without Simon at my side, it took longer until my eyes fell shut, and the dreams got worse again. But to help a friend, it was worth this price and more.

The result was bad sleep and a worse awakening. What would happen next? If my friends and I were really trapped into a downward spiral towards a catastrophe, I didn't want to know what would be next. Yet it was obvious that while staying in bed would be pleasant on the short term, the long run was more important.

Breakfast didn't help either, even though it was excellent. Simon joined me after a few minutes, the hunger becoming strong enough to make him leave Phillipa's side. He had always been a big eater for his size, and seemed to be always hungry. And no matter how much food he got, he was apparently immune to gaining weight.

Phillipa herself arrived a few minutes earlier. Although sleeping and a shower had made most of the visible marks of her misery disappear, she was radiating enough of it so that everyone would be able to simply sense it.

I wanted to do something, or at least say something to ease the pain, but if there was something within my abilities, I was unaware. All I managed to do was to place an arm around her. Not much to be sure, but everything that came to my mind for now.

* * *

The destination was a palace on the top of one of the central hive spires, an enormous building of dark stone and steel, looking like a massive dark crown from afar. The danger was not only an illusion however, as the palace placed under the glowing dome of a voidshield and surrounded by dozens of turrets equipped with sufficient firepower to take down ships in orbit.

The pilot placed the guncutter on one of of several dozen landing pads, and their arrival had been expected by a full platoon of soldiers in the same uniform as those on board.

As Jaspin left the plane, the waiting troops again silently took positions around her. An officer gestured for her to follow, and she did, seeing no other option anyway. Curiously, all these soldiers securing her and this place were entirely unconcerned with the bolt pistol and power sword Jaspin openly carried. The same was true for all the other guards the Inquisitor could see. In a certain way, it made sense, a single person would be unable to do any significant damage to a facility of this size, yet since she was to meet the ruler of this realm of humanity, it was most odd that she was allowed to keep weapons. Not recognizing a digiweapon was one thing, but letting a stranger carry a sword and a pistol? Perhaps some sort of cultural habit? Or just a leader's hubris?

Her cluster of guards let her through a maze of similar, darkened corridors, occasionally split by heavy steel doors with even more guards. Servo skulls patrolled the palace, and Jaspin's trained eyes could see the concealed hatches where sentry guns were installed. As they moved deeper into the strangely quiet place, the Inquisitor noticed a weird change in the equipment of the guards: Red armor, like the ones used by elite warriors of feral worlds, and halberd had replaced grey uniforms and las weapons. The knights in red still had holsters for some sort of pistol, but the sudden switch to such ornate ceremonial gear was still strange. With the guard's gear, the atmosphere of the building also changed. It came colder, and there was a certain sense of dread in the air. Jaspin had served the Emperor too long to ignore her instincts in regards to such matters. This was a place were something terrible had happened, even though it might not necessarily be the taint of the ruinous powers. It could also be basic human evil.

Another set of steel doors appeared at the end of the latest corridor, and this time, the soldiers stopped and gestured for Jaspin to move further alone. She did, and the two knights flanking the door silently opened it.

Jaspin assumed her proudest posture before stepping into the large room on the other side, a throne room by the looks of it. Two men stood in front of a large window on the far side, one whispering into the other's ear.

The whispering one was clad in a black and silver version of the armor of the knights outside, but he did not wear a helmet, revealing a pale, aristocratic face and short black hair with an archaic cut. The other man was tall and dressed in all in white royal finery, including a cloak made out of the fur of some xeno beast. He too was pale, and his long white hair fitted his clothing perfectly. He radiated an aura of confidence and authority, the kind one would expect from a ruler. He turned around to face Jaspin, showing the handsome face of a man seemingly in his best years, although the expression in his piercing blue eyes revealed a far greater age. Juvenor treatments no doubt. The Ascendant, as his identity was obvious, made a gesture with his left hand, and the black knight turned to leave, as did the guards near the doors.

"Lady Jaspin", the Ascendant said and began to walk towards her, "it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance." A deep, yet weirdly pleasant voice, a voice that could silence a room filled with bickering courtiers without any technological help. Again, the Ascendant delivered on the expectations of a ruler.

"I hope your journey here was not to arduous. After all, it was a long one."

There was something about him that gave Jaspin the creeps, yet she was to good of an actor to let it mess with her role.

"It was indeed a long journey", she replied in an overly melodramatic tone, "and all those military types have so little in the way of proper manners, it is abhorrent."

The Ascendant smiled, an expression that made him even more creepy, as it was a knowing smirk full of malicious intent.

"Your enactment of this type of hysteric noble is charming, but let us drop this charade. I know why you are here, Inquisitor, and we have to discuss a few points regarding your mission."

Before he had finished half of his statement, Jaspin was already pointing her bolt pistol at his chest. To his credit, he didn't bat an eye about the threat.

"Oh, you will want to hear me out before doing anything rash. What I will propose is to our mutual benefit."

"You try to tempt into abandoning my duties to the Golden Throne, with the promise of mutual benefit? I am a loyal servant of the Emperor! I will not betray the Imperium, and even less so for petty gains!"

"I never thought about breaking your loyalty to the Imperium. On the contrary, to be honest. Your devotion will be the reason why you will aid me."

He took a step forward, speaking in the tone of a wise old friend. "Do you know what would happen if the Veilfall Crusade were to fail catastrophically before a counterattack on the Grimmal Sector?" A dark chuckle. "Of course you do. This crusade was foolish from the start. Both the Scarus and the Calixis Sector have poured so much of their military into the Periphery War and the Achillus Crusade, Calixis suffered the False Saint, and now the strategic reserves of all three sectors are thrown into the grinder of the Veilfall Sector. An experiment supposed to fail, let by a woman barely out of the officer school and a few people the segmentum command wants to get rid of. They hope the crusade stalls before retreating, so that they can remove those they set up for disaster. But if a sufficient force were to launch an offensive into Grimmal soon after a crushing defeat of the crusade fleet, half the sector could be overrun before any sort of functional defense to be established. If said force was large and led well, all three sectors might fall in rapid succession, and you know how that would affect the stability of the entire segmentum."

Jaspin rose her pistol higher, aiming for his face. "And what becomes of your grandiose scheme if your head gets spread out over the wall behind you?" Her voice was a little, parts of her realizing that there was an obvious answer. It was spoken out a moment later.

"It is executed just as planned by my subordinates of course. If someone pointing a gun at my face was enough to stop my designs, I would have never allowed you to keep that pistol. And if the bolt pistol won't work, that digi laser won't either. And you know this game well enough to know I am telling the truth. You are a fanatic, dear Inquisitor, I can tell that, but even you don't want to die for nothing. I crave power, and while I understand you would never trust me, you can trust that if the Imperium gives me power, it will be in my own self-interest to protect it to the best of my abilities. Your call, Inquisitor. Help me help the Imperium, or know you are responsible for the destruction of considerable parts of this segmentum. Choose well, Lady Jaspin."

Situations like this were something most Inquisitors hoped to never encounter, however, one did not reach such a high office without learning how to handle a worst case scenario. Jaspin had left detailed instructions to Captain Harmon should she be taken out, and while she would prefer to relay more information to him, what he had would be enough to report back to the Ordo. And once the machinery of the Inquisition was moving, no force in the galaxy would be able to stop it before its goal was achieved. Of course Jaspin knew that in fact some threats in the universe were able to take the Inquisition on, but since the Ascendant had no Hive Fleet and no true Black Crusade under his command, his pocket realm did not belong in the category of these dangers. He was a resourceful heretic to be sure, and yet far greater ones had been sent to the pyre once the His forces had crushed their megalomania.

Her thoughts focused on this truth, while she made every effort to mask this. She slowly lowered the pistol, hands still shaking, her face twisted in an expression of despair, with even a single tear running down her cheek.

"I don't have much of a choice then, have I?"

"You do have one, but only one good option to take." The Ascendant's voice became softer, even though there was a smug grin on his lips. "Please don't worry to much for now. You are save here, and once this whole affair his over, you will be known as a hero."

He gestured towards the door. "Your quarters should by now be ready, and you will have to excuse me. There are other pressing matters I have to address."

Jaspin left, and found the very same guards had brought her here still waiting to escort her to her suite. As the double doors of the luxurious room fell shut behind her, Jaspin immediately activated her hidden null box before she began to note every detail she had gathered so far, whispering her thoughts and what she had discovered into a micro recorder hidden in her necklace. As soon as a strong vox transmitter was in range, the device would sent all of it to Harmon and any imperial military unit nearby. And as the Ascendant wanted her to pave his way into the Imperium, she would without a doubt come across over loyalists. All she had to do for now was to wait and play along.

As of now, there was no way of knowing as to what this madman actually wanted, and finding the truth would have to be her top priority for now. Only when light was shed upon the scum's plans, the righteous flame could be brought to bear. And here, in this luxury prison in some heretic's dark stronghold, Eleanor Jaspin vowed to make sure that happened. Natural sleep in a place like this was certain to be impossible, and after spending several hours in prayer for guidance, she took a dose of a light narcotic to ensure that she would have enough strength for the next.

* * *

The Ascendant watched the Inquisitor leave and waited for a few minutes until the ones involved in his plans came back. Half a dozen of his most loyal and most qualified servants, all of them ready and willing to do what had to be done.

"Well, she will certainly try to betray us. Watch out for good opportunities for her to do so. Until then, keep the asset safe. Do you have the intel I requested."

One of his generals saluted and handed him a data slate. "Yes sir. Although I have to wondered what this Marshal Ravencrown has to do with it."

"That is a story for another time. For now, ready the first fleet and reinforce the rapid response units. Inexperienced high command or not, the crusade will be able to put up a fight. Still, this is the chance we have waited for so long. Return to your duties and make sure it is not wasted. The Dragon watches us, ladies and gentlemen. May its wings carry us to victory."


End file.
